Gov. Phil Murphy announced last month that his administration had reached a deal on government employee and retiree health benefits with public worker unions that would save taxpayers an estimated $496 million through the end of 2020. The pro-union governor said it demonstrates what negotiating in good faith can achieve, as opposed to the adversarial bargaining approach of Gov. Chris Christieís administration.

The Atlantic--Police-Grade Surveillance Technology Comes to the Playground

After Parkland, schools are installing gunshot-detection systems typically used in cities like Oakland and Chicago. But are they worth the expense?

As other elementary schools across the country were preparing for the new school year by cleaning classrooms and training teachers, Hermosa Elementary, in Artesia, New Mexico was also installing a network of wireless microphones that could pick up the specific concussive audio signature of gunfire. Placed high in classrooms and hallways, the golf-ball-sized devices can alert authorities to the sound and location of gunshots, reportedly within 20 seconds of firing. They can also identify make and model of guns, and automatically lock doors and sound alarms throughout the campus.

They are a technological balm for a terrifying problem: In the wake of the Parkland shooting, and Sandy Hook before that, school districts across the nation are spending hundreds of thousands to outfit campuses with high-tech surveillance, crisis response, and police technologies.

The hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have become the most raucous showdown of the #MeToo era in part because of the high political stakes, but also because for many people itís become acutely personal.

As the fallout reverberates through the news and social media, people see their daughters, their sons, their friends, and themselves. We each carry with us someone for whom this is not the hypothetical topic of a pundit brawl, but a dark reality.